I love it when I read the Scriptures and something new jumps out at me that I hadn't noticed before. Actually that happens a lot, and I do appreciate it!
This morning it was Luke 11:3, part of Luke's telling of Christ's teaching His disciples how to pray by giving what we now call The Lord's Prayer as an example.
"Give us day by day our daily bread."
A seemingly small difference in wording from "Give us this day our daily bread" in Matthew 6:11. (In both cases I'm quoting the King James Version of the Bible. I realize other versions have slight variations, I simply want to comment on some things that struck me as I read today.
Both Matthew and Luke's accounts of this prayer humbly acknowledge the Lord's hand in everything in life, even something as basic as simple forms of food, such as bread. We could of course take the attitude that it is our work that produces our bread, that it does not involve the Lord. Life is so much fuller when we do acknowledge Him, when we do follow His example, when we do talk to Him about our need for His direction in everything we do. We have so many choices in life. It is too easy to get caught up in the details of bread production, so to speak, and lose sight of the bigger picture of life. The Lord helps us keep our priorities aligned with His. The resulting increased balance in our life is a real blessing.
Not to mention that when we get in the daily habit of going to the Lord with all the details of our life, even our daily (or our day by day) bread, then we have a priceless communication established with Him when we reach situations in life where it seems there are no answers. I offer my personal witness, added to countless other witnesses, that He has the answers. Always. Even when there are no answers visible to mortal eyes.
Which gets me back to the subtle distinction between our bread this day, or our bread day by day. It seems to me that day by day not only acknowledges our need for the Lord each individual day, and the need to pray to Him each day, but it also gives a longer term view.
We need Him as we make our longer term decisions in life, the ones that are going to affect us tomorrow, next week, next year, and beyond -- in addition to our needs of this moment in time.
I offer my personal testimony that we truly do need the Lord today and every day. I welcome you to write your testimony, or comment, on the blessing of the Lord in your life in the space provided here. I share my testimony with you in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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